HEALTH EXPENDITURE AND HEALTH OUTCOMES IN MALAWI: THE IMPACT OF CORRUPTION

Abstract

This study looks at the links between public spending corruption, and outcomes. Based on the paradigm that most governments try to promote good health in order to attain broad based economic growth, many countries devote huge budgetary allocation to health, but in most developing countries especially, this huge health expenditure fails to translate into better health status. This paper thus investigates how the effectiveness of public health expenditure is affected by corruption in Malawi. Data on public health expenditure and corruption variable captured by the corruption perception index were regressed on infant mortality and under-five/child mortality using both the ordinary least squares and the two-stage least squares in a VECM. The results obtained showed that public health expenditure has negative effect on infant mortality and under-5 mortalities when the corruption indicators are included. It may be worthy while to consider that in Malawi reducing under-5 mortality rate and infant mortality rates may be unattainable if the level of corruption is not reduced considerably.